One of Liang Chen's eyebrows couldn't help but rise slightly when he heard the announcement echo throughout his head. In truth, ever since he received the news that his law of the void couldn't be picked up by the Bloodwind Codes, he expected his rank to never rise again. But that fact didn't matter much to him, the entire reason he wanted to raise his rank was to obtain the right to request a favor from the Bloodwind Emperor, to revive his parents and sister.

He didn't want to interfere with his parents and sister again now that they had been reborn, they had earned their peace and didn't deserve to be dragged into his messes again so he had already lost his reason for increasing his rank. But he quickly figured that these thoughts were pointless to have, his rank had increased so he could just accept it and wait for the future with deciding if he had any wish he wanted to be fulfilled.

At the same time, he was a bit curious exactly what it was that sparked the sudden increase in rank. His law of the void could easily be ruled out, which meant that there were only three possible reasons that he could think of. The first was the increase in strength he got from the slight increase in body cultivation after passing through the void, the second was the might unleashed by the completed version of the Fourth Step Pierces the Sparrow, and the third was him defeating the avatar of the Sky-Piercing Sparrow.

He didn't think that his body cultivation increased his strength so much that it could rank him on the Multiverse Bloodwind List so he quickly ruled out that possibility. The completed version of the Dragon King's Six Steps sounded reasonable, but after giving it a bit more thought, and going over what the avatar had said, he eventually attributed the rise to him defeating the avatar. This Sky-Piercing Sparrow seemed to be a rather powerful and famous person, but considering the fact that just defeating the avatar placed Liang Chen on the Multiverse Bloodwind List, he was probably quite a bit stronger than Liang Chen first guessed.

Liang Chen didn't get the chance to continue mulling over the question, the Bloodwind Code nagged at him again to choose his title. But even if he did think it over longer, it wouldn't change much. Liang Chen didn't regret what he did, given the chance he would certainly do it again even if he knew it would make him a powerful enemy. He would save those he could and punish those he could, and he would base all of it on his own selfish ideals, that was the path he had chosen long ago. And that simple conviction was all it took him to come up with his title.

"Scourge King."

This was his first title, the one given to him within the Mystic's Hidden Realm after he engaged in his first wide-spread massacre. It carried with it the people's fear of getting struck by his wrath, and the title had followed him ever since. Using it as his title would also serve as a message to Yan Ling, he had arrived, and he was coming for her.

"King rank has not been achieved so your chosen title will be altered to fit. Congratulations, your title has been set to Wrathful Scourge Lord and your Bloodwind Code can now be used to contact other people of the same Ruler rank."

The Bloodwind Code fell silent after announcing everything, Liang Chen quietly waiting for a bit of time. But he hadn't received any word from Ye Zhong even after nearly two minutes passed so he guessed that things would probably proceed like last time, he would have to wait for a bit of time before Ye Zhong contacted him and let him cash in the five or more questions he was now owed. Liang Chen didn't mind this too much, he wasn't even certain what he should ask about right now so he wasn't in a rush to get contacted.

With his own things cleared up, Liang Chen turned his attention towards the fight taking place a short distance away from him. Yi Xue and the others were not done fighting against the six people from Tranquil Lake, they had only just barely managed to incapacitate one of them in the time it took Liang Chen to finish his own business. But that was only to be expected, the strongest person in Liang Chen's group had just barely entered the Soaring Immortal realm while the strongest person in the enemy group was already at the late stage of the Soaring Immortal realm.

Yi Xue and the others weren't like Liang Chen who could butcher even people with higher cultivation than him, if it hadn't been for Yumao keeping an eye on them they would likely have been wiped out already. Liang Chen didn't go over to help out despite finishing his business, he simply leaned against the side of the closest building and quietly observed their fight, glancing sideways at one of the larger alleys that led to this area.

He could sense several people rushing over, emulating Yan Ling's own wind-based tracking technique allowed him to discover that they were all clad in somewhat thin metal armor covered in needle-thin engravings. The thunderous sounds of ongoing battle had clearly attracted the guards of this city, bringing quite a few of them rushing over to see what was going on. Liang Chen stopped leaning against the wall and took a step towards the alley, his body blurring as he shot forward and reached the group of 30 guards nearly instantly.

"We're fighting against people of the Tranquil Lake so unless you've come to arrest them then I would like it if you just stayed out of things."

Liang Chen's eyes swept over the faces of the guards in front of him, studying their reactions as he spoke. He had come to the conclusion that the Tranquil Lake was most definitely not a good organization, at least the people they were fighting right now were far from good. But getting a bit more information was always good, so he wanted to see how these guards reacted to hearing about the Tranquil Lake. And somewhat following along with his expectations, a bit over half of the guards recoiled slightly upon hearing the name. Those that didn't recoil from the name seemed to grow angry instead, one of the guards that seemed a bit younger taking half a step forward.

"The Tranquil Lake is a part of our city and thus they fall under our jurisdiction, it is we that decide how they are tr..."

A hand shout out and covered the young soldier's mouth before he could finish his words, the older and heavily scarred man who silenced him forcing the solider to stand down with a stern glare. The man then turned his eyes, one of which was completely dim thanks to a five-pronged scar that ran down over it, onto Liang Chen. He studied Liang Chen's expression for a bit, focusing mostly on his eyes, eventually giving a slow nod of his head.

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"I see, just a bunch of rascals playing around with some firecrackers they stole from the nearby market. I'll make the report to the governor, guard captain, and market chief so that they don't misunderstand."

The scarred man then called out an order and had the entire group of guards turn around and leave, Liang Chen quietly commending the man. His parting words seemed pointless at first glance, but giving them a bit of more thought made it easy to realize what he meant with them. The governor, guard captain, and market chief were probably in cahoots with the Tranquil Lake, the scarred guard was clearly trying to warn him just who he would be facing by going against the Tranquil Lake.

Liang Chen returned to his previous position once the guards left, continuing to observe the battle that Yi Xue and the others were taking part in. Their strength was inferior to their opponents and not even the advantage in numbers could make up for it, most cultivators could easily murder people of lower cultivation.

Yi Xue and the others knew this and thus immediately realized that they had to make up for their weakness in some other way if they wanted to win. And the crux of their path to victory became Yi Xue herself. She placed herself upfront and took on the role of the shield, drawing as many attacks as she could towards herself. She suffered more wounds than the others combined, but her familiar bloodline increased her regeneration enough that things had yet to reach an unbearable degree.

She also didn't serve as just the shield, she also diligently used her laws to weaken and inconvenience the enemies. Her law of strings could hamper her opponents' movements and twist their bodies in unexpected ways when they were caught off guard, producing more opportunities for her comrades to land attacks. But even with all this, it was still her final law that proved to be the most useful one in the battle, and it was also the one that Liang Chen was the most interested in, the law of curses.

Using this law could be considered a bit troublesome, it not only required the user to decide on conditions ahead of time, imposing these conditions into their own Qi, but if the enemy was too strong or the conditions too lax or too tight, there was a chance that they wouldn't activate. Yi Xue was acutely aware of this weakness, so rather than trying anything large with a dangerous curse, or utilizing multiple curses at once, she settled on a single simple curse.

Every four hits she landed on an enemy would place a small curse on them, slowing down the movements of one of their limbs, starting with the smaller ones before moving onto the larger ones. It didn't show much effect at first when it only affected their toes and the like, but when their fingers started to slow down the enemies were forced to use a bit of their Qi to push back the curses. Each curse from then on forced them to expend more Qi, Yi Xue and her group slowly but surely whittling the enemies down.

Yi Xue's body was stained with blood and even the others in the group were wounded more than just a bit, but it was their enemies that were despairing the most. They knew from the very start that this wasn't a fight they could win, their hearts and hope were shattered along with the avatar of the Sky-Piercing Sparrow. They wanted nothing more than to flee, but they couldn't even do that, not with Yumao and Liang Chen keeping an eye on them. They couldn't go forward nor could they retreat, they had reached an utter dead-end from which they couldn't even surrender, otherwise their deaths were guaranteed.

And just like that, they were forced to keep fighting for another 15 minutes before they were all taken down, only their leader managing to last beyond 10 minutes. Yi Xue and the others didn't kill the six people, only incapacitating them so that they could no longer move, so the six people were still alive when Liang Chen walked over and nodded his head at Yi Xue and the others.

"Good work, but there are still flaws you need to work out. You need to either learn or come up with at least one attack that condenses every single drop of your strength. Not having such an attack means that you will have to drag out every fight, which in turn only gives the opponent more time to unleash his own attack to finish you off. Once we're done here I'll help you with figuring out ideas for such an attack, but for now, you should heal your wounds."

The nine people wearily nodded their heads, their eyes blazing as they moved between the six people from Tranquil Lake and the mother and son pair. They had protected these people, they had prevented others from suffering as they did, and that simple fact filled them with a fervent elation. Liang Chen handed each of the nine people a pill as well as some special water from his interspatial ring, the nine exhausted people sitting down on the ground to focus on recuperating.

While his own men focused on healing, Liang Chen turned to the six people that were collapsed on the ground. Yumao had already landed on his head and was looking at the six people with a hungry gaze, had it not been for Liang Chen's presence then he might have tried to eat them already. As he looked at the collapsed people, an invisible mist of poison mixed with Liang Chen's Anima Essence seeped out of his body and flooded the souls of the six people, their eyes glazing over as they fell under his control.

Looking at their glazed over eyes, Liang Chen gave a slight nod of his head. The more he used it, the happier he was that he bought the Fragile Heart Mushroom while being in the Storm Wolf sect, it had been a great help ever since. With the men falling under his control, he simply asked them to tell him everything.

"Tell me about the Tranquil Lake, where you are located, how you operate, how you treat people, everything you know and everything you've done."

Liang Chen didn't consider himself an indiscriminate killer, this Tranquil Lake seemed like a cruel organization but that didn't mean that every member was evil. Should there be people in their ranks that had done nothing, then he would simply leave them alone, the same held true for the six people in front of him, which is why he also asked about what they had done. The men had fallen under his control so they had no choice but to open their mouths, their voices somewhat stilted as they responded.

"The headquarters of the Tranquil Lake is located at the center of the 9th District, it is from there that we run the slavery and prostitution rings. We operate by...!"

The six voices were simultaneously cut off by a violent cough, blood gushing out from the seven orifices of all six people. Liang Chen saw a light pierce through the robes of the six people, gathering on their chests and forming the same emblem like the one they wore on their robes. The light caused their bodies to ring out with crunching noises, their chests actually starting to twist and distort as their bodies slowly seemed to turn into fleshy vortexes.

The five weaker members of the group died nearly instantly, only the leader was strong enough to survive for a few seconds. But as to whether or not surviving something like this was a blessing or a curse, only one who experienced it would know. The eyes of the leader gazed directly at Liang Chen, immense despair and sorrow welling up within his pupils as he forced out a few words from his twisted throat.

"Ha...Ha...Ha. In the end, it doesn't matter what you do... Men are born as slaves...and slaves we will remain until death...only then will we be free of the strong...only then wi..."

His last words were drowned out by his own blood as his throat distorted beyond recognition, his entire body twisting around the center of his chest as Liang Chen looked on with grim eyes, immediately understanding exactly who had caused this.